Category: women

Are widows human beings or aliens? Are widows born to be widows? Do widows deserve freedom from all sorts of oppressions and abuse?

A woman becomes a widow when she loses her husband, just like a man becomes a widower the day his wife deceased. No woman is born with the hashtag for being a widow on her forehead. Possibly, no woman prays to become one.

Marriage is intended to be a joyful affair, and it is usually backed up by the formality statement, “until death do us part.” This implies that neither the woman, nor the man envisaged the idea of death right from the beginning of their nuptials. The truth goes that everyone will die and what is heterogeneous about this is that, the death date applies differently to every human being. However, what happens when the woman loses her man, or when the man loses her woman?

While widowers barely had problems, widows are subjected to numerous abuse and loss of rights.

Are there displaced, migrant, refugee-widows? Absolutely! Many women fleeing the war zones have lost their spouses, and some, also lost their children to the warfare.

That widows are experiencing prejudices connote that theirs is another pattern of violence against women. The plight of widows in the world is different from countries and civilizations. In most African nations, widowhood is a complete tragedy. It is a cultural abuse. It seems like losing one’s spouse is unacceptable and a scourge. It is understandable that one should be handed the ultimate freedom and peace to mourn one’s deceased husband. Regrettably, this is often the contrary. Still, it is a misdemeanor of the women’s fundamental rights when they experience continuous ostracism, trauma, discrimination, physical abuse and economic deprivation, only because they are widows.

Who are the perpetrators of widows’ abuse?

The widows’ in-laws are usually the major culprits. Through the maltreatment from their in-laws, the women experience second suffering. Some are accused of killing their husbands. And these women have no alternatives than undergo certain messy, satanic ritual procedures to demonstrate that they are no responsibility for these deaths. Under the tradition, some widows are passed on to becoming wives to their late husbands’ brothers. If they refused, their children will be removed from them before they are kicked out.

Other widows suddenly wake up to discover that, their late spouses or his family members deliberately ticked off their names from his testaments.

Livelihood is more extremely difficult for uneducated, unemployed widows, in particular, those in the rural regions.Life gets even more unpleasant for widows with lots of young children and fewer financial resources.

In few examples, the widows have to deal with additional conflicts from within her own family members. Mothers are known for forcing their widowed daughters to quickly marry them off to someone else out of the desperate need to adapt to societal norms.

Similarly, the communities where these widows are, may be the origin of abuse towards these women. In most cases where women do not have the rights to own a land, widows are not earmarked to assume ownership of their late husbands’ farmlands. Council authorities may harass these women for sexual gratification in exchange for awarding them the legal rights to the farmlands.

Her name is Jacqueline Sauvage. She is 68 years old. Jacqueline was a battered woman for 47 years. This means out of that 68 years of her life, she perhaps had a beautiful violence-free 21 years. Norbert Marot, was Jacqueline’s husband. They have four children (three girls and a boy). Marot was well known both within the household and in their community as a violent man. Everyone knows he was abusing Jacqueline, but no one dares intervene. Besides, Jacqueline never reported to the police, and that was later used against her in the judicature. On 10th September 2012 (Condomines, 2015), Jacqueline shot dead Norbert from behind while he seated. This occurred later on another family violent dispute over their transport business. A few days afterwards, she learned in prison that her son committed suicide by hanging. During the court procedures she discovered that Norbert sexually molested their three daughters in their childhood. Before this, Jacqueline did not surmise that her violent husband was as well a sexual predator.

The second woman is a 60 year-old Bernadette Dimet (Durand-Souffland, 2016). Like Sauvage, Bernadette was a victim of domestic violence for years. Bernard Bert, her husband had an illegitimate son through Bernadette’s sister. He’d rape the latter in the early years of his marriage to Bernadette. Despite knowing this, Bernadette kept the secret to herself. She knows, her sister knows, and Bert knows. The trio maintained this heavy, painful secret from everyone until after Bert’s death on 2nd January 2012, when Bernadette shot him. Their two children only found out that their supposed cousin was in fact their stepbrother.

Both women killed their husbands in 2012, in different settings. Both were victims of long-term domestic abuses. In their separate circumstances they had embraced muteness and rather opted to suffer in silence. Shame and self-blame play vital roles in encouraging silence. As Kaufman (1996, p.72) asserts, “The beaten, humiliated individual,…by a brutalising…marriage, has been defeated by shame.” Roberts (2007, p.55), opines many women are ashamed of being abused that they feel uncomfortable about those around them knowing their situation. Where self-guilt comes in is when the survivor of feels she has not done enough to progress to her marriage works (Bryant-Davis, 2008, p. 65).

Marriage does not determine or justify that a woman will find the long-sorted peace. While it brings happiness and creativity for some, this same marriage remains a doom for others. It has the capacity to snatch off their lives from tranquillity straight into hell. A woman is not an animal. She is a human being. She has emotion. Even no one must attack an animal not to talk about a woman. Beating a woman when she is NOT a punching bag? Ah! She deserves reciprocal love. She is not a dunce that she cannot understand and tolerate the other gender. That a man believes that beating his woman is an act of love is a misconception. Assaulting a woman generates an ambient of cruelty in that relationship. Doing so scratches out the divine bountiful blessing that is in it.

Patriarchy is the opposite of equality. Educational training is important for the female population. Where this is wanting, we are entrusted with a bigotry world. In science, gender equality is far from a reality for women.

How many astronaut females do we have in the world? How many Nobel Prize awarded women in science? They are 18 since the establishment of the Prize in 1901 (Nobelprize.org). In addition, compare the number of men and women in other sectors, and it’s alarming the continuing huge disparity between both sexes.
The majority of women and children displaced due to, conflicts or economic reasons, from their countries, are deprived of obtaining an education.

With no specific time to resume schooling, the majority of them may never recuperate from the traumas associated with war and displacement, to be able to go back to studying.

Professionals have expressed frustration at why women ‘don’t just leave’ without recognition that women may be staying for reasons related to fear and safety, and/or lack of resources.
(Marianne Hester: Children’s safety: the child protection planet in The ‘Three Planet Model’. Pg.42

Summary: Audio recording (personally created using Final Cut Pro) of Mrs Gbowee’s keynote speech delivered today at the grande opening of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom ‘s Centenary Anniversary Conference.